Discussion

Help with fluffy cookies?

I've been on a cookie-baking mission ever since my flatmates donated enough ingredients to me to start up a small bakery. However, the tollhouse cookie recipe that I'm using has resulted in some very, very 'fluffy' cookies that taste more like cake than cookie...What could I be doing wrong?

This is the current recipe, taken from the net and adapted for a smaller batch:

Dry ingredients added to dry, and then wet to wet after creaming butter, sugar and essence; then egg. Extra water added to make dough. 10-15 mins in oven after dough is left c. 12 hrs to 'rest' in fridge. Cooked at 190.

It's most likely the water you added. In the oven the steam from the water is going to give lift to your cookies, resulting in the more cake like texture. Your recipe seems to be the Tollhouse recipe halved, except for the baking soda which should be 0.5 teaspoon to be a correct ratio in relation to the other ingredients. Half the vanilla as well.

Thanks - is there anything that you'd recommend to use instead of water? I didn't know if using milk instead to bind the mixture would affect the composition of the cookies. And...I think I will adjust the baking powder too :D

Baking powder or baking soda? They're two very different things in baking. Although both provide "rise" due to the release of carbon dioxide, baking powder has additional acid to cause the dough to set faster.

I wasn't sure that I needed to originally, but when I combined the dry ingredients and the wet, the discrepancy was obvious both times I made the recipe - it was very dry and did not form into dough at all.

I was wondering the same thing the first time I read this but am not much of a baker so didn't initially respond. I make the tollhouse recipe all the time (but use half butter half shortening as a personal preference, nothing to do with cake-i-ness) and couldn't figure out why on earth water is needed.

adding water and letting sit should really make problems. baking soda reacts to water at room temperature. Chemistry experiment gone wrong. that said, the other half of baking powder reacts when heated...

You got a pretty succint reply from smalleats. If that is indeed the amount of baking soda you're using, that will have a noticeable affect on rise and texture. And I've made the mistake of adding water to baked goods when the dough didn't seem right. Always a disaster. Are you letting the butter soften fully and are you adding the ingredients sufficiently slowly?

One more point, it seems you're using twice the amount of chocolate chips. I'm all about chocolate, but that sounds like enough of an increase to really affect the outcome.

Your recipe is half of the original Tollhouse cookie recipe but the baking soda (which causes the rise) amount is the same. Try reducing it by half and see how it goes. If it's still fluffy, you could be overbeating the butter and/or egg. The vanilla is the original amount but I use more vanilla and like the taste, plus the extra liquid would cause it to spread, not be more cakey anyway.

the water may have contributed, but i'm thinking the baking soda is the primary culprit. as taiwanesesmalleats already pointed out, 1/2 teaspoon is sufficient for this recipe. anything more and you end up with puffy cookies.

BTW, if you also want to make them chewier/more dense, omit the granulated sugar and use all brown sugar. (but if you prefer a thin, crisp cookie, keep the sugar as written.)

If reducing the baking soda still gives a fluffier result than you were expecting, you might also try letting the dough rest/season in the fridge for a while (up to 24 or 36 hours) before you bake the cookies. In addition to letting the flavor develop more, that allows the flour to absorb the liquid better, so maybe it won't be released to steam so quickly in the oven.